ABOUT ME

Angela Christlieb

is a Film Director, Film Editor and Video Artist.

About my Work

„Anthology Film Archives has a longstanding tradition of presenting the work of filmmaker Angela Christlieb, whose quasi-documentary works are as confounding and disorienting as they are revealing. Her previous films – CINEMANIA (2002), URVILLE (2009), NAKED OPERA (2013), and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GELITIN (2016) – have explored strange, often hermetic, and always idiosyncratic communities, individuals, or cultural realms, all of which stand apart from or frankly refuse to conform to social and cultural conventions.“ Jed Rapfogel, curator Anthology Film Archives NY

„I’ve always been interested in dream worlds and escapism in psychoanalysis.My documentaries are have often been about people who live in self-created „imaginary“ worlds or indulge in outlandish passions. The focus of my experimental films is creating imaginary rooms, non-existent spaces that the spectator can perceive but never occupy. These could be called the spaces inbetween, between „real“ images. The imagery in my films also tends towards the surreal and dream-like, which often focuses on representing a psychological and acutely subjective perspective of the outside world, on presenting spaces
that we can perceive but never truly occupy. Many of my works also show the human body in dialogue with architecture.“ Angela Christlieb

Angela Christlieb studied Video Art and Experimental Filmmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts of Berlin under Valie Export, Heinz Emigholz and Elfi Mikesch. In 1997, she moved to New York with an Emerging Artist grant and began working as an independent filmmaker and theater manager for Anthology Film Archives New York. In 1999 she received a DAAD Grant to study film production at the New School. Since 2001 she collaborated with Eve Sussman & the Rufus Corporation New York, for several art projects. In 2001 she moved back to Berlin and began working as writer and freelanced editor for several artists and filmmakers, including: Monika Treut, Heinz Emigholz, Andrew Horn. In 2007 she worked as freelanced editor and visual artist for Christoph Schlingensief’s AFRICAN TWINTOWERS. 2009 premiere of her second feature documentary URVILLE. In 2012 she directed NAKED OPERA, living in Luxemburg, Vienna and Berlin. Since 2012 development and production of her feature artist documentary WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GELITIN. 2013 NAKED OPERA premiered at BERLINALE. Winner Heiner-Carow-Award for best German film at Panorama section BERLINALE and Press Jury Award at Message of Man Festival in St. Petersburg. In 2014 she directed and produced WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GELITIN. Her documentary UNDER THE UNDERGROUND was premiered at DIAGONALE 2019. Upcoming feature documentary: PANDORAS LEGACY.